Acquisition

The announcement Dec. 11 by the senior leadership of the Pentagon and US Navy that the Small Surface Combatant (SSC) will be a modified version of existing Littoral Combat Ships (LCS) was no surprise to most followers of this saga. What was surprising was the absence of any major changes to the ships. Here are…

Danes have a well-deserved reputation for designing and building efficient, effective ships on tight budgets. In line with the government’s desire to provide meaningful contributions to coalition and expeditionary forces, their newest ships have been designed to deploy well beyond Europe. In recent years the Danish Navy has commissioned five impressive, modern warships fitted with…

With US Navy test pilot Commander Tony Wilson at the controls, an F-35C Lightning II of Air Test and Evaluation Squadron 23 (VX-23) lined up on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz off the California coast early Monday afternoon and swooped in to make the first arrested carrier landing of the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) carrier variant. It…

The F-35 joint strike fighter is scheduled to achieve initial operational capability (IOC) for the Air Force in August of 2016. And for the first time, the man in charge of the F-35 program is warning that date looks unlikely. “I am very worried now that my promise to [the Air Force] to give them all…

The US Army has found what it believes to be a great deal on a group of paintings, and has been approved to spend $600,000 in order to add them to its already huge collection of art. The service filed an “Unusual and compelling urgency” notice on Oct. 16 to pull the funds from its…

At a ceremony held in late September, Sierra Nevada Corp (SNC) and Embraer rolled out the first US-produced A-29 Super Tucano. Unsurprisingly, it looks an awful lot like the traditional Super Tucano, of which Embraer has produced more than 170, but it’s still a milestone for the team behind the plane. Without rehashing the tortured history…

Another Joint High Speed Vessel (JHSV) was launched from Austal USA’s Mobile, Alabama shipyard at the end of September, marking a half-way point in the construction of ten all-aluminum JHSVs for the US Navy. The Trenton (JHSV 5) was floated over a two-day period in a process involving several contractors. On Sept. 29, Berard Transportation…

On Monday, the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette reported that 300 airmen of the 122nd Fighter Wing, a National Guard unit based in Ft. Wayne, IN., would be deploying to the Middle East. Although the deployment has been in the works for a while, it only takes a short jump of logic to think these airmen will end up…

The show floor at last week’s Air Force Association Air & Space Conference, held just outside Washington, was chock full of representatives from industry both big and small. Almost every defense contractor looking to do business with the Air Force had officials circling the floor, ready to ambush anyone wearing stars on their shoulders with a business pitch.…

US Navy’s new Triton UAV makes first cross-country flight The US Navy’s new MQ-4C Triton unmanned aircraft completed its first cross-country flight on the morning of Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2014, taking about 11 hours to fly 3,290 nautical miles from Palmdale, California, to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland. Flying in restricted conditions through US…